A Trace in the Sand

Well, bigger. Add an “eBay” for donating and finding goods to help those in acute or chronic need, and you’re getting closer to the potential. Big huh? Well, think bigger still! Think of Room to Read. Think of microfinance networks. Think of anything you can to do to help, and organize a community around. The HelpMatch technical network will build the tools to create and run that community.

We are only limited by our ability to draw on analogies and experiences, because the creativity of the technical community is huge, the desire to learn and build in the technical community is huge, and the desire to help is a big as the need for help!

(I expressed some hesitancy on the willingness of our technical community to really ante up and make this happen, and it was Craig Jordan who took me gently but firmly to task, giving me the words: the desire to help is a big as the need for help.)

Carpe Diem: Seize the Day

HelpMatch, as a social networking space focused on providing help to those in chronic or acute need, has a window of opportunity that will close as other kinds of solutions are put to the market survival test. If we architects want a great big sandbox of an application, one that can truly make a difference in the world, then we need to seize the day!

I have registered HelpMatch.org for the HelpMatch help network, and HelpMatch.net for use by the technical community forum as we architect and build HelpMatch. I would like to very shortly have HelpMatch.net launched with community conversation/collaboration tools like a blog, wiki, etc. So, areas you can immediately help in are:

• recommending a wiki engine for HelpMatch.net (what does wikipedia use?) and a blog tool (I’d default to WordPress; other recommendations and considerations?)
• recommending a hosting service for HelpMatch.net, recognizing the need to start low cost and potentially/hopefully scale quickly
• provide vision input, and vision review
• submit HelpMatch logo ideas
• tell us what I am forgetting (all the good ideas are someone else’s; all the bad ideas are mine!)

We need to get the vision statement pounded into shape quickly, so that we can form a Board of Directors and get HelpMatch formally launched as a non-profit organization that can take donations to get infrastructure in place. In addition to the Board of Directors, I’m suggesting we form an Architecture Leadership Council, and hold an “indaba” pretty soon. (indaba n. A council or meeting of indigenous peoples to discuss an important matter.)  But this needs to be an open process, so if you disagree on how to organize for effectiveness here, please do comment on this post!

Again, we need the vision in place to do this. I’m hoping the Indy Architects Group will give some face-to-face time to this. Of notable mention–Al de Castro and Barry Crist, as the two primary/consistent sources of inspiration for HelpMatch ideas, and also Jeff Price, Gene Shin, and Kurt Kirkham. We also have new members who are just joining.

Architecture workshop attendees have worked on facets of HelpMatch, from vision to architecture, and in this post I am representing a lot of good ideas that have come from many, many people over the past 18 months or so.

There’s No Time like the Beginning to Make a Difference

If you have contacts with philanthropists who’d like to help people help each other, please put me in touch with them. This is an opportunity you can offer your contacts, and there is no time like the beginning to make a difference! While it will be good to have people involved on the HelpMatch organization side who are committed to putting real time into this, money will also help speed this engine for social change up the network effects curve!

As soon as we get some collaborations infrastructure in place, we’ll all have to start serious viral marketing to create the space where our technical networking habits can translate into goodness for humanity–personal, individualized yet massive scale help! What a vision!

Be a Link in the Chain Reaction

You can stand on the sidelines and observe, and be part of the damping force of disbelief. Or you can pitch in and make this happen. You have the power to make this technology’s biggest contribution to the plight of poverty and disaster, chronic and acute need, at the individual, family, community and organization level! Each person who reads this and does not do something active to contribute, shares responsibility for inertial drag. You are the first link in the chain reaction that will spread HelpMatch around the world. Each person who acts, shares responsibility for beginning the network process that this needs to reach its potential. Your involvement will give you the satisfaction of seeing this through its crucial beginnings, setting in process the technology hub that will link people to people committed to making a difference.         

You can start to connect the flow of influence by linking to

• the HelpMatch thread on this blog, until HelpMatch.net is up and running. Then you can redirect.
• the HelpMatch Initiative page on the Resources for Architects site (http://www.bredemeyer.com/CommunityForums/HelpMatch/HelpMatchIndex.htm)

Architect a Better Future 

Very soon we’ll have the HelpMatch portal up and running, but in the meantime, why hold back? If you have something against my facilitating getting this ball rolling, let’s talk about that. If not, link! Or, alternatively, create your own statement (and tell us where it is, so we can point others to it)! The least you will get is embarrassing me if I idle instead of playing a role in getting this into high gear! But the time is now! This is our defining moment!

Yes, this is daunting: “The most serious mistakes are made on the first day.” “The end depends on the beginning!”

And it is exciting too: “Begin with the end in mind.” The end, my friends, is the obvious place to turn to give and receive individual help: to connect directly, or through people and groups we trust, to those we can directly help. Technology is ready for this. It just takes some leadership, initiative, and yes, hard work with a hammer (see Bono’s commencement address). We are the architects of a better future.

We Need YOU! 

So, give us your words; refine these words; let’s build the vision together.

Yes, we will have to scope and stage what we deliver as we build HelpMatch to its potential. But there is a big world-shaping opportunity here. Little seeds growing into huge maple trees all over the world, starting with each bit of contribution that you make now! Throw your idea seeds into the soil of HelpMatch.